Jagex moderator fired for stealing 45 billion coins from Old School Runescape participant (Updated)

Update: Jagex has issued an announcement stating that no credit card or banking data was lost as a consequence of the breach. "Further to RS Gold yesterday's statement, we could confirm that none of our players' card or bank details were compromised," it said. "We operate with an industry-respected, entirely compliant third party payment processor, to intentionally avoid staff having access to players' full card or bank details. This applies when players choose to store their information at payment period for any future purchases. Jagex undergoes regular, third party testing to make sure we keep the highest security standards"

A couple of weeks ago, an Old School Runescape player who goes by mazrim_lol on Reddit maintained that a"serious information breach" had caused him to shed 45 billion coins on his principal account. His claims had been dismissed by numerous different players, several of whom indicated that it had been his own fault for not getting the accounts properly fastened, or that he might be lying about it completely. But it came to light today that he wasn't lying, and that he had been right about the information breach, which was actually an inside job at Jagex. "We affirm that a Member of The Old School Team was dismissed from job at Jagex subsequent gross misuse of moderator privileges," Jagex said in a statement posted now. "During our rigorous regular system tests, irregular action was identified on small number of accounts, for example, movement of wealth and objects back to the live game."

"Following our evaluation, we were able to solve the problem before any significant effect was made to the broader match, or market. We have also taken measures to return items and GP to some accounts that are affected. Whilst we generally do not return items or stone, we believe this unusual situation, we wanted to guarantee no players dropped out into the rogue actions of a member of team "

Jagex added that it's"working with the authorities" regarding the episode --45 billion coins has significant real-world value--but said it couldn't offer further details. However, in accordance with this Resetera thread that the employee in question is Jed Sanderson, aka Mod Jed, who might actually have stolen in excess of 100 billion coins in total, worth over $100,000 on gold-selling markets. He's also allegedly involved with the Reign of cheap RuneScape gold Terror clan, which was accused of using DDoS attacks to slow competitions in tournaments, including a $20,000 championship that occurred in September of this past year. Jagex said in the time that its investigation had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Sanderson, but in the aftermath of this I expect that it will be taking another look.